“One individual wore two rings made of an amalgamation of gold and copper, called tambāk on the ring-finger of the right hand for good luck. Tambāk rings are lucky rings. It is a good thing to wash the face with the hand, on which is a tambāk ring. Another wore two rings of the pattern called trilōham on the ring-finger of each hand. Each of these was made during an eclipse. An Akattu Charna Nāyar wore an amulet, to keep off the spirit of a Brāhman who died by drowning.”
As examples of charms worn by Bēdar men in the Canarese country, the following may be cited:—
String tied round right arm with metal box attached to it, to drive away devils. String round ankle for the same purpose.
Necklet of coral and ivory beads worn as a vow to the goddess Huligamma.
Necklets of ivory beads, and a gold disc with the Vishnupād (feet of Vishnu) engraved on it, purchased from a religious mendicant to bring good luck.
In an account of the Mandulas (medicine-men) of the Telugu country, Bishop Whitehead records[19] that a baby three days old had an anklet made of its mother’s hair tied round the right ankle, to keep off the evil eye. The mother, too, had round her ankle a similar anklet, which she put on before her confinement. One of the men was also wearing an anklet of hair, as he had recently been bitten by a snake.
A metal charm-cylinder is sometimes attached to the sacred thread, which is worn by Dēvāngas (a weaving caste), who claim to be Dēvānga Brāhmans.
I have seen the child of a Kuruba (Canarese agriculturist) priest wearing a necklet with a copper ornament engraved with cabalistic devices, a silver plate bearing a figure of Hanumān (the monkey god), as all his other children had died, and a piece of pierced pottery from the burial-ground, to ward off whooping-cough. The Rev. S. Nicholson informs me that, if a Māla (Telugu Pariah) child grinds its teeth in its sleep, a piece of a broken pot is brought from a graveyard, and, after being smoked with incense, tied round the child’s neck with a piece of string rubbed with turmeric, or with a piece of gut. In the Tamil country, the bark of a tree on which any one has hanged himself, a cord with twenty-one knots, and the earth from a child’s grave, are hung round the neck, or tied to the waist-string as talismans.
A Kota woman at Kotagiri on the Nīlgiris, was wearing a glass necklet, with a charm pendant from it, consisting of the root of some tree rolled up in a ball of cloth. She put it on when her baby was quite young, to protect it against devils. The baby had a similar charm on its neck. By some jungle Chenchus pieces of stick strung on a thread, or seeds of Givotia rottleriformis are worn, to ward off various forms of pain.
Small flat plates of copper, called takudu, are frequently worn by Tamil Paraiyan children. One side is divided into sixteen squares in which what look like the Telugu numerals nine, ten, eleven and twelve, are engraved. On the other side a circle is drawn, which is divided into eight segments, in each of which a Telugu letter is inscribed. This charm is supposed to protect the wearer from harm coming from any of the eight cardinal points of the Indian compass. Charms, in the form of metal cylinders, are worn for the same purpose by adults and children, and procured from some exorcist.[20]